Collaborations

In addition to publishing our own guides, we’re always happy to work with other companies on editorial and design projects. We’ve done this with Sonos home sound systems, Instagram, GearPatrol magazine, Auchentoshan whisky, the city of Arlington in Texas, Winkworth estate agents, Foyles Bookshop, Condé Nast, the University of Chicago, the East End Trades Guild, A Bathing Ape and others.

If you or your organisation has something you feel requires the Herb Lester touch, we’d be very glad to discuss it. Please contact us at herb@herblester.com.

Herb Lester for Sonos

We were asked to produce poster-maps for a series of events celebrating the life and music of David Bowie at Sonos concept stores in London and New York. The poster-maps explore Bowie’s creative life in these cities in a visually exciting, large format, double-sided A2 print that was available exclusively at Sonos stores.

Herb Lester and the East End Trades Guild

The East End Trades Guild is an organisation set up to support and promote small independent businesses in London. It includes well-known brands, fashion retailers, architectural practices, artists, lawyers and accountants, printers and even publishers, among them Herb Lester Associates. This map was hand-drawn by Adam Dant, known for charting the rapidly changing landscape of East London through a series of slyly satirical maps and artworks. The large folded guide includes an introduction to all 215 members of the Guild, from internationally acclaimed accessories designer Ally Capellino and costume jewellers Tatty Devine to the much loved Columbia Road flower market and Grade II-listed Art Deco café E Pellici.

Herb Lester for Instagram

Working with Instagram, we produced guides for Paris, Berlin and London using travel recommendations from some of the most influential Instagrammers. Herb Lester provided editorial expertise to narrow down entries from Instagrammers across the world, creating these three city guides. The partnership was intended to help readers explore cities through photography and to share experiences in a way that’s both beautiful and compelling.

Herb Lester meets A Bathing Ape

In the heart of Soho, just a few minutes walk from where Dougie Millings built the Beatles’ suits and Tommy Roberts established Kleptomania, Japanese clothing empire A Bathing Ape now plies its trade. The items sold at A Bathing Ape are entirely different in style to those of their predecessors, but the business of providing new garb to fashion-conscious youth is much the same.

A Bathing Ape chose to highlight this sense of continuity in an ephemeral business, and asked us to collaborate in this by adapting Wish You Were There, our guide to the best places to shop, drink and dance in London during the years 1960 to 1966, to fit a square format and incorporating their shop. The revised map was printed onto handkerchiefs with packaging that places a bemused simian in the very epicentre of Swinging London.

Herb Lester and Auchentoshan

Some months back we worked with our friends Two Arms Inc on this project for whisky company Auchentoshan. The illustrations take the reader through the manufacturing stages and also help to better understand the tasting process.

Herb Lester and Foyles

In place of a traditional Christmas catalogue, Foyles, the venerable independent booksellers, took a characteristically idiosyncratic approach for 2011 and decided to create a map based on their seasonal suggestions. We were delighted to be asked to assist them and quickly roped in Marcus Walters to design and illustrate the piece.

Working at greater speed than Santa’s nine-reindeer team, we produced the delightful catalogue-map hybrid you see below, which was distributed to Foyles’ five London shops and in a slightly different version to the Bristol store.